International
Germany celebrates 34 years of reunification but with political cracks due to populism
The Germans celebrate 34 years of reunification, a process that ended with the division of the two Germanys, although the recent electoral behavior of the East Germans, where populist parties have become strong, cracks the traditional political scenario of the country.
Behind the festive atmosphere marked by the events of the 34º anniversary of the reunification led by Chancellor Helmut Kohl, a concern weighs the political reality: the booming populism of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the leftist Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW).
The results of these parties in appointments such as the European elections last June or the recent elections of the federal states of Eastern Thuringia, Saxony and Brandenburg, have hit the Central European nation, in which new political divisions between East and West seem to be opening up.
“In 1989, the two Germanys started from different economic and social points and the expectation was that soon there would be an equalization and that would also equalize political points of view,” Martin Schulze Wessel, historian at the University of Munich and expert in Eastern Europe, told EFE.
“At the socio-economic level there is still no equalization, although progress is being made in that direction, but with regard to the vision of politics and political culture, that equalization has not taken place, moreover, there have been new divergences,” he said.
Schulze Wessel alludes to the fact that, after 35 years of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the standard of living in what was the German Democratic Republic (GDR) has increased although the gap between the east and the west is still observed in data such as that the East Germans receive a salary 14% lower than the Westerners, according to data from the Hans Böckler Foundation, a study center specialized in the Teutonic world of work.
This Thursday, in a speech delivered in the city of Schwerin (northeast), Scholz invited to abandon the idea that total equality between east and west in Germany can take place.
“The idea that unification would end completely when the situation in the east would be exactly the same as that in the west, when there is no west that is a single unit, is an idea that does not help us,” Scholz said in the context of the celebration of German Unity Day.
Strong populism in the east
Politically, the east has a different dynamic, as shown by the fact that in the last European elections AfD was – with few exceptions such as Berlin – the most voted force in what constituted the GDR, while in the western territory it swept away the Christian Democratic Union (CDU).
In those elections, the CDU won with 30% of the votes, followed by the AfD, with 15.9%, the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD, 13.9%) and The Greens (11.9%).
In the European elections, BSW broke out with 6.7%, a percentage celebrated as a success because that formation was barely a few months old and because, in East Germany, the party of the leftist figure Sahra Wagenknecht managed to be the most voted party, after AfD and the CDU.
According to Daniel Kubiak, a researcher at the Humboldt University of Berlin, told EFE, “we can see that the party system of East Germany differs from the West, because in the west there are still two majority parties (CDU, SPD), which have been joined by the Greens, the FDP and AfD, and it is largely stable.”
“The east is more volatile and people tend to vote for parties located at the ends,” he added.
This, according to Kubiak, is not something unique in Europe, since the vote has also become more volatile in other nations of Europe, such as France, Italy, Poland or Austria, the latter country in which the far-right Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) won the legislative elections last Sunday.
The end of the consensus on aid to Ukraine
Among the issues with which AfD and BSW differed in the European elections, but also in the federal states of the east that voted in September, where the far-right formation won in Thuringia, while the Wagenkecht party is emerging as a government partner in Saxony and Brandenburg, is the opposition to military support for Ukraine.
AfD and BSW want Germany to break with the current policy of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who has turned his country into the nation in Europe that provides the most military aid to Ukraine.
“The European elections and the elections in the federal states of the east have shown a division and that there are populist parties, the far-right AfD and BSW, that go out of the consensus of the other parties, and there seems to be a rift between east and west,” Schulze Wessel concluded.
International
Meta Says Russia Seeks to Ban WhatsApp for Defending Secure Communication
U.S. tech giant Meta, the parent company of WhatsApp, said that Russia is seeking to ban the messaging app because it “challenges government attempts to violate people’s right to secure communication.”
Russian authorities have encouraged citizens to switch to state-backed applications, and in August they already blocked WhatsApp’s calling feature.
On Friday, the communications regulator Roskomnadzor claimed that the platform was being used to “organize and carry out terrorist acts in the country, recruit perpetrators, and facilitate fraud and other crimes.”
“If the messaging service does not comply with Russian law, it will be completely blocked,” the regulator warned.
WhatsApp remains one of Russia’s most widely used messaging services, alongside Telegram.
Moscow is pressuring both platforms to grant authorities access to user data upon request for investigations into fraud and activities the government labels as “terrorist.”
Human rights advocates fear the demand could be used to target critics of the Kremlin, President Vladimir Putin, or the war in Ukraine.
International
Archbishop Wenski criticizes Trump’s deportation policies, calls for stronger push for reform
The Archbishop of Miami, Thomas Wenski, has called for increased pressure on the U.S. Congress to advance comprehensive immigration reform and criticized President Donald Trump’s mass deportation policies, arguing that they “do nothing to help.”
“We need to apply more pressure on Congress so lawmakers can make the necessary changes. It is also important for the Administration to listen to our voice. We do not want to be anyone’s enemy—we are Americans,” Wenski said in an interview with EFE.
The religious leader, who heads one of the dioceses with the largest Latino and Haitian populations in the United States, issued a call to defend the rights of migrants. He also emphasized that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has maintained a strong and public stance in favor of migrants for decades.
International
Trump relaunches diplomatic push to finalize U.S.-Backed peace plan for Ukraine War
U.S. President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday that his diplomatic team will resume meetings with delegations from Russia and Ukraine in an effort to pressure both sides to accept the peace plan proposed by Washington to end the war in Ukraine.
As part of this new round of talks, U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff will travel to Moscow to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Meanwhile, Army Secretary Dan Driscoll will hold discussions with Ukrainian representatives to narrow differences on the remaining points of the agreement.
Trump also confirmed his intention to meet personally with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and with Putin, though he emphasized that such meetings will only take place “when the agreement is fully finalized or in its final stage.”
The president claimed that his administration has made “tremendous progress” toward resolving the conflict and reiterated that the war “never would have started” if he had been in the White House at the onset of the crisis.
The U.S.-backed peace plan consists of 28 points and has been revised following feedback from both sides. According to Trump, only “a few points of disagreement” remain under active discussion.
One of the most controversial aspects of the proposal is the suggestion that Ukraine cede parts of the Donbas region to Russia and limit the size of its armed forces. Kyiv is working closely with Washington to soften these clauses in search of an arrangement that does not compromise its sovereignty or security.
With this diplomatic push, Trump aims to solidify his role as the main mediator in the conflict and steer the war toward a political resolution after years of devastation, humanitarian crisis, and rising global geopolitical tensions.
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